


in loving memory of you

by whateverliesunsaid



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, in which amy dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 00:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverliesunsaid/pseuds/whateverliesunsaid
Summary: In which Amy Pond, lying on her deathbed, sees a familiar face.





	in loving memory of you

**Author's Note:**

> You will die in your  
sleep and leave   
everything unfinished.   
This is also   
speculation

It's both the loneliest and the most crowded she's ever felt in her life. The doctor leaning over her, peering into her state in a knowing silence of a man who's used to the many ways a body empties itself of life. A man who, she finds when she peers into his eyes, knows all too well that this is the end for her. Some sense of anger lingers in the bottom of her throat, a monster climbing up the walls. A sense of terrible, crude fear too. Anthony tightens his hold on her fingers, talking two dictionaries worth of words about possibilities to the doctor who impassively but patiently shuts down every one of them matter of factly. Amelia shuts her eyes tight, turning her head away.  _ Jesus, can’t I die in peace? _

“I want to sleep,” she proclaims, wrinkled hand rising to her forehead in a motion that implies pain enough so they don’t fuss, just enough so Anthony will let her have this. She opens her eyes, ready to give him a dignified stare if the situation called for it but he was looking down at their hands, lips pressed shut for a moment before he let her hand go and slapped his legs, conjuring up strength to stand up. 

“Alright, mom” he responds at last, following the doctor out of the room. He lingers for a second longer and she turns her head in his direction, waiting. Sometimes he was just like his father; hovering on the skirts of the emotion as to avoid the outburst like this, it’s almost as though she could see something of Rory in him, in fact, most often than not she really could. “Shout if you need me,” he pleads, “and  _ rest _ .”

“I promise.” Amelia responds softly enough that he believes it. A white lie mothers often tell their children just to be nice.  _ I promise _ . She won’t. Mothers never call their children in times of distress, not until they can handle it. Not until they can become a safe haven for their children to break down in. Not until their hands are steady, their breaths are easy and their tears are few and far between. 

Stoic martyrs, hurting quietly so their loved ones can bleed peacefully. Amelia wouldn’t call for Anthony, not ever. She’d call for every god that may listen, every star in the sky, every blue box she forbade herself of seeing ever again. She’d pray under her breath for every man in the sky she holds dear. But never her children. Never River - the death defier -, never Anthony. She would have to be brave for them, now. In this final patch of the bumpy road, she’d have to save her groans for whatever comes next. 

She draws in a deep breath and drags her fingers along the blue fabric of the blanket, bright-orange nails against the deep blue. How typical of her. The muffled noise of conversation rises and falls through the walls, a sudden burst of low music turning the already muffled conversation into incomprehensible babble. That's another mercy she can be grateful for. The Universe has been kind to her, but not kinder than her loved ones. All of them in their own way, gracing her with their care. Misguided, the most of them. Harmful, a fair few. But the big ones have always been simply  _ marvelous _ . Rory, Mels, her friends-

**The D—.** No, not now. She'll save this one for later. This loved name will remain trapped behind the doors of her subconscious, behind the metaphorical lips of her mind which she maintains tightly shut.  _ He'd been glorious. _ And she was thankful. So very much.

He'd saved her before she found the strength to do it herself. He'd taken her by the hand and danced with her through the pathways between stars, and they had fallen. And they ran— farther than humanly possible, away from everything, rushing towards the unknown. That's a gift she considered herself unable to ever repay.

In turn Amelia gave him love, a home. Even life when the universe forgot his name. She gave him  _ her  _ life, again and again. And, at last, she let him go. But she wasn't gone; he found her in the words like she knew he would.  _ Clever, so clever. _

She pushed every swirling thought in her head aside, fighting through the anxiety she spent her life learning to control. The music outside turned into overwhelming noise, the kind that makes your skin prickle when you’re overly stressed. She felt stupid, as she often did, inappropriate. Wasn’t everyone supposed to feel calm when their time came? At least when the time wasn’t wrong. When it couldn’t be rewritten. When a twist of fate couldn't bring you back from the neverwhere. 

Still, there she was. 

Teetering on the rope that separated her from this realm to the next, the canyon below her partially hid by thick fog. All she could faintly spot was the clear image of Rory, her dear Rory, gone too soon. He deserved more time than she did, she knew. Life-saver Williams, he saved her too. Her and half the population of New York, in occasion.

Also Leadworth. And Rome. And so many other planets they visited.

Wrinkled smile looked so handsome in her boy who was always wise beyond his years. He reached her hand for her and mouthed ‘trust’, though she couldn’t quite hear his voice yet. It was, however, almost there. She was, at least, almost there.

Death was not a fair judge. If it were, she would be the one waiting. Heaven knows she’s done enough of that. “How dare you leave me behind, stupid”, her voice echoed through the canyon, growing distorted at each turn and her rope wobbled.

Another step.

“You always had more zest for life than i did” he shrugged, as though he knew exactly what was on her mind. “Besides, i didn’t really apply for this in any way. Tried to avoid it, actually.”

“Should’ve stayed plastic, if you wanted to live forever.” she pushed out a breathy laughter, forced and fake. 

“Who cares about forever if  _ you’re  _ not there?” Earnest Rory, stupidly in love Rory. She blushes and looked down at the rope, hoping he couldn’t see it. He always seemed to know the words to say. She never did. A writer needs blank pages, empty spaces in which to write. Rory gave her the words for the inexplicable she spent her entire life trying to put into words. Or comprehension, when even his kind-heartedness couldn’t bridge the gaps between Amelia’s mind and the rest of the world. 

She takes another step, a little more courageous this time.

“Have you said goodbye to everyone yet?” he asks, head tilted. “Everyone hates it when you do this.”

“Do what?” she blushes again, but now it’s something more akin to anger that fuels it. A scrap to the ego, not a deep wound, though just enough to earn a stare. 

“Run away without saying goodbye.” His matter of fact approach to these words make her accept it without arguing further. He knew all about being left behind by her. She thought of every face in her close circle, all of whom had either gone themselves or were already waiting for her to go and to follow shortly after. Those knew better than go through the door without saying goodbye like they mean it. She hated it every time, but it started ringing true way too often for her to deny it  _ mattered _ . 

Soon she started saying her ‘i love you’s when they walked through the door too. 

All she had left were her mum and dad, both too young to even conceive the thought of her. Universe-will-explode-if-you-say-hello kind of stupid.

Her son and daughter. Those are ones she’ll always be too cowardly to go through with. 

Her husband.  _ Right there _ . 

Her best friend.  **Gone** . Away. Off with the stars. Full of life, not a day older than the time she saw him last, probably. Not alone, hopefully.

Remembering her face, still. If she’s allowed to hope for something this grand.

“I don’t think i have anybody left.” she smiles but it falters, failing to reach her eyes.

“You cracked there.”

Love, almighty in it’s ever-reaching arms, never lets go of a heart. Not one. Through all of time that had separated them from there to now, from crack to absolute rupture, love had never let go of its hold of Amelia’s heart. Not for one second even. Her heart beat against it stubbornly, like a bird trying to set flight despite all hope, but love kept her domesticated, caged inside it’s soft embrace. It made her a savage, unsalvageable in every way and it, too, saved her.

Love never dies, not as humans do. Love survives, like the art, like names we keep hidden under our tongues, like tattoos we hide from the world underneath thick cloth. Love, like poems, are always waiting to escape right through the artist’s mouth or hands. Amelia had never been any good at hiding it and Rory spotted it all along.

She hated to say it, even then. It made her too vulnerable, too  _ aware  _ of the loss. Her grasp of life collapsed like a house of cards blown by the breeze and yet his name, unsaid for many years, her best kept secret, held her at bay. 

Tied to a pier by a single knot, she was left adrift. Waiting.

She loved the running. The travelling. The laughing, the dancing, the madness, the danger,  _ loving him _ . Knowing he loved her all the same. Some poets say soulmates have their souls tied together by a red thread that stretches and knots but never breaks so they’ll never stray too far from one another, for they must unite. Great love stories are all tragedies. 

She loved it so hard she didn’t mind it was all meant to crumble, sooner rather than later their equilibrium would falter. They had classical tragedy written all over them. He brought song into her life but she looked back (she was lost for it.) Their story was never meant to be a fairy tale though they did fit the part.

The martyr, the lover. 

The travelers. The best friends.

Boy meets girl, girl  _ adores  _ him, boy vanishes.

Boy comes back,  **girl meets the universe** .

Above all else, she loved  _ him _ . He was her fallen hero and when his pyre was set aflame it burned harder for her heart was in it too - held inside his palm. He knew all about sacrifice and she knew all about waiting, in the end, they switched places. Loving him was an act of creation. Of defiance. Thinking of him often felt like praying for his appearance, like perhaps he’d manifest off the sheer power of her brainwaves. Like maybe they ought to find one another, even in another time. And be remembered.

Even before their days.

The feeling of the fabric beneath her touch rose to the forefront of her mind before she realized Rory was gone again, leaving nothing but a faint smell of memory and the feeling that he’d just gone off to the corner store. That he’d be back before she could miss him again. This, too, was only a figment of the harsh reality.

The one that proclaims, proud and mighty:  _ everything ends _ .

The one she stubbornly ignored until she decided to face this demon head on. This bed being her final battle ground.  _ Not i _ .

An overwhelming desire to see something beyond the blur that imposed it on her eyes over the years swept her entirely and she reached for her glasses on the top of the wooden bedside table right beside her. Golden edges and thick lenses, a few scratches and some dust too, willing to go just as easily as she found herself being again. A pressing of her index finger on the frame into the arch of her nose and the woman can see again, miraculously so. 

First, the off-white ceiling of their fourth store apartment which she never let go of, not even after he left. Not even when they were far too successful and when their family was too big to be cramped up in that tiny living room, arguing about authors and watching strange television programmes. Watching history happen in real time. The smell of tea and biscuits, soda and milkshakes, plants and perfume penetrating the consciousness of everyone who dared to join them. Overwhelming in occasion, but not quite as mind-shattering as the noise of music and cars and chatter, as well as the odd smell of cigar, rising from the streets into the window Amy would sit beside to write under the sunlight. 

For years her routine was to look out the window and write whatever words came to mind, creating characters out of passing folks and of wandering memories. Sometimes the children would send her letters, too, and she’d read over them with tea and write back to them with funny letter papers. Never realizing she built this entire career off writing letters to people, above all her lost and loved. Off the long list, his name sat proudly at the top though as the years flew by she stopped saying it. 

Once, a girl came in. Brown skinned, huge smile, bright and fresh faced. Quick thinking with stardust still clung to her skin. A friend of The Doctor’s. Though not  _ her  _ Doctor, she’d later find. Amelia helped her on without ever saying the words lest he be manifested before her and the spell be lifted. 

Lest her idealization of him were to be proven wrong by a swift move of reality. Worse, even, a reality that didn’t even know her name. A voice that didn’t sit right with her ears. A version of  _ him  _ that wasn’t hers was worse than not ever seeing him again. A name is a powerful thing, she learned in her years. His name, even more so. The other girl waltzed off one morning, on the lookout, and never showed up again. Amy knew what that meant: it was  _ her  _ time to run. 

And so Amelia returned to her letters, her novels, her wandering thoughts and Rory kept saving lives and Anthony grew before them quicker than they could even grasp the idea of it and the world kept it’s turning motion around its axis... Nothing ever seemed to stop. Nothing ever did, until everything started simply falling off the face of the earth. 

Or, at least, that’s how it felt. 

To watch Rory age, his skin grow wrinkly around his earnest eyes, laughter lines manifest themselves around his smile, proved itself to be a feat to the woman who loved him most. She spent nights awake, nursing his sleep, watching as it happened, as his breath grew soft and deep, as his wrinkles sunk deeper into him, as his story started showing itself through the thin paper of his visible body. Truthfully, it wasn’t  _ him  _ she was grieving, but her old fantasy of  _ them _ . The Ponds, immortal time travelers. The more time passed, the more she understood The Doctor himself. Their Doctor, their childish, wonderful time traveling wanderer and his fear of life wearing itself out. 

As time went by and her own hair was lit up by strands of white that ate away at her fire, she found herself growing intimate with the idea of simply allowing it to happen. Simply letting nature run its course, not fight whatever came her way. And, thus, despite all commercials of hair-dyes and otherwise that came into vogue at her later years, she rejected it vehemently.  _ Time is a wonderful thing _ , she wrote into a poem, _ to let pass you by _ .

She pushes herself up to sit up in her bed, her back aching like hell, and pulls her copy of Melody Malone’s latest novel into her lap. The red, blue and brown cover depicted a woman in an alley running from a child who eerily resembled her imagination of how Melody would’ve looked. It was, however, speculation. A flick of pages after and she’s back at the penultimate chapter of it, at the center of the climax, when Melody Malone finds herself in the room with the criminals, armed only with her wit and a bust of Lord Byron. In a way, she does remember this. Not only because she proofread it, typed it up and published it herself but because River once told her, over wine and under a meteor shower, in her backyard, about this one time where Lord Byron and her solved a murder mystery at a dinner party. It was aliens in her history, in this story it would turn out to be the mafia. 

She giggles to herself, bearing secrets deeper than anybody could ever tell, as she heard her daughter’s voice narrating  _ oh so very intriguingly _ how it all came to be. In a way, all of them became gifted storytellers after years of creating excuses, stories and alibis. In fact, Amelia owed her entire career to this particular skill she so expertly honed through years of calling her mum and dad from a spaceship- or, rather, from yet another  _ excursion _ . She often remembered one particular instance where she found herself skyping her mother inside the Doctor’s library whilst pretending she was in Rome. The Doctor babbling in italian somewhere behind the screen to make it believable (he never explained why he knew how to speak italian). 

More than once, in fact, did they scramble to transform their normal as a normalcy their friends and family would recognise in pictures. After the angels, she found herself longing for those photographs, for those memories. She never found the right moment to ask about them, fearing the likelihood no that would come from it. Everything was too jumbled in their timeline already, she knew. Pictures meant to remind her of the long lost would be more trouble than what’s worth. 

Melody Malone fired a gun Amelia had forgotten about and suddenly she’s latched onto the page again, completely lost on how exactly this came to be. She scrambles to find the word she last remembers about but fails to remember just what word that could be. It annoys her, how spaced out she gets. Or is getting. Lately. 

This issue is new and ancient, dating from the time around her diagnosis when all the meds made her feel terrible and sick and then, brand new, as this particular nuisance had very little with feeling like her mind was fogged up. It was like sipping from a really hot mug of tea and suddenly being reminded you’re wearing glasses by the swiftness with which your eyesight becomes interrupted. That reminder of how you have a  _ body _ , and it is flawed. Old, ageing. How what once was beginning is slowly inching towards an end. It annoys her to no end.

She huffs, sitting up straighter in her bed, thumb keeping the pages open as the other hand pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. The sound of music slipped through the cracks around the door and she looked out her bedroom window, desperate to see people that weren’t upset at the sight of her. Her window, however, wasn’t perfect for crowd-watching as they lived in the fourth store of a residential building. At that moment, all she had to look into was, in turn, other people’s windows and so she settled for watching bodies dilly-dallying from one way to another in the interrupted privacy of their own homes, unaware of her keen eye.

Nowadays she understood exactly why the elders of leadworth would be so keen on noticing her clothes back then: sometimes you just don’t have that much to look at, so you pay  _ a lot of attention _ to what you do. Young people, with their bright-eyed rush to see more and more knew very little about this specific type of boredom of having seen  _ everything _ . The time traveler, of course, had seen a deal more than the average old person. Had seen stars from up close, other planets, space whales and land-sharks, vampire-fish-alien people and actual vampires, too. Had seen the past, the future and most things people could call a present as well.

Looking back on it all, Amelia found his name inching towards the edge of her mouth. Easing into her thoughts. I’m  _ here _ ,  **i am here** . Like a closed door in a home won’t stay closed forevermore, his name refused to be silenced. His memory detested not being revered. Him, for how far away he was at all times, denied her solitude. In all universes, at all times, Amelia was always accompanied by her most beloved best friend. 

The outside she could peer into through the open window came anew by the sight of the rain, drizzle turns into storm in a matter of minutes and ends just like so. As all wonderful things tend to be, hasty and imperative. Quick and strong, demanding all attention. _ Loud and present. _ Like him.

His swoop of dark hair at the front, always somewhere between well groomed and in need of a haircut. Imperfectly perfect as he was, the only way she’d ever have him. 

“Hello, Pond” His voice rang in her ears so clearly it was almost as though she had kept a recording of his speech, almost as though she didn’t choose to leave. She pressed her eyes shut, tears welled up behind the lid. How can an old wound still hurt so vividly? She could hear her own heartbeat against her chest, as strong and alive as he seemed in her memory. 

A drag of a hand against her cheek makes her entire body react at once, her eyes snapping open to see his kind green eyes watching her so close, so… Him. “Hello.” he repeats, unsure all of a sudden. His hands reaching back to his hair, pushing it back and away. He leaned over her, curiosity gleaming in his green eyes. She never forgot them, never wanted to. Not his eyes and how he analyzed her, every now and again, as if she was a most uncrackable theorem. Not his cheeks and how easily lifted they were by a smile. He declares: “You’re up.”

“Raggedy man,” her voice makes a terrible job of hiding the well of emotion his presence causes. Her breath hitched, eyes wide open. “You came back.”

“Took me long enough, i think.” His optimistic lilt, old as time, almost drives her to tears. She nods in agreement at that. For a time lord, he was rarely ever on time. He pushes his hands into his legs, stretching his back up and away from her face, as if he’s ready to leave already, though he doesn’t stop watching her when he asks: “Are you ready to come with?”

She grins, a very sad version of a smile. Tight lipped and small. He doesn’t understand. _ How could he?  _ She shakes her head in denial, making him frown. “I’m old now… It’s too late.” she explains, catching his hand into hers and pressing her bony fingers into his softer skin. “How do you fancy riding around with an old lady?”

“Guess we’re both ancient now. Aren’t we?” He laughs, young as ever anywhere except behind the eyes, where his history lined itself up like a papyr. Only the knowing could read it, only the lucky were allowed to gaze upon it for long enough to try. “I— I missed you, Pond.”

“I missed you, too” she shrugs, mindlessly undermining just how much bleaker her world became without the glimmer of his presence. Her voice low, nearly a whisper. If only he could look into her eyes and see the years, the months she spent chasing him through the oddities that happened in New York. If he could see her chasing Melody, visiting orphanage after orphanage. Writing novels where he became a nameless character, again and again. Rewriting their history.

If he could only know that she took his torch and ran with it. So much so the Pond household became a destination for aliens seeking help— refugees of interstellar wars he was surely fighting at some point. In his name, they fostered peace. Helped Nixon fight the silence again, just for kicks. The Ponds were saving the world. If only he could be  _ proud of them _ , that’s all she could ever hope for. Instead, she sat with the lingering lack of his presence. The void and the silence he left behind. His hand tightens its hold onto hers ever so slightly, reassuring. “You weren’t alone, were you?” she presses, suddenly reminded of this question. 

“No!” he admits in an explosion of energy entirely like him, a lilt that sings joy though his voice doesn’t rise too high, it’s merely a hint of his inner world where this new friend seemed to have a wonderful impact. “I met a most impossible girl,” he told her, his voice soft, almost a lullaby. “Clara. Clara Oswald.” his eyes were lit up at the mention of her, Amelia noticed.

“How was she?”

“Short. Bouncy.  _ Bossy _ .” he ranked, his voice bobbing up and down with his expression, every turn of phrase a new opportunity. “A fan of yours, too. She had your novel.  _ Summer Falls. _ ”

“That was a good one.” She boasts, a hint of feigned coyness lingering at her words. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes, quite marvelous” he answers knowingly. “Shame i skipped the last page.”

“You missed out.” She teases, her voice very reminiscent of her old one. His presence brought youth to her presence and filled her to the bone, to the marrow. At heart, this old man was her youth fountain. No wonder he left and age got her. 

His voice is almost apologetic, a tinge of an old self deprecation lingering at the corner of his lips when he admits: “I always do.”

“It’s okay.” his old friend assures him, her thumb circling, softly the back of his hand. “You already know what happened.”

“Do I?”, he pries. All eyes, wonder and curiosity. It makes her grin at him like the cheshire-cat where previously she fancied herself to be Alice.

“Yeah, it’s just the usual. Magic man flies away,  _ girl grows up _ ...”

“He should’ve come back.” he admonishes, almost as though he’d rather she rewrote it to fit his wishes. As he did with time, then she would do with the story. “In time, of course. For adventure’s sake.”

“Nothing’s stopping him,” she lies, a gentle smile tugging at her lips, kind as daylight. If anything, the whole universe is stopping him. Fixed points and all that. 

“As for her…”

She groans, an almost theatrical display designed to make him smile but falls short of it .“Completely bound.” she gestures downwards to her bed, her legs too weak to run. Her lungs barely able to hold a laugh without coughing. “But it’s okay. He’s the king of okay, i’m told. He’ll be alright.”

He looks down at her feet, following her gesture almost as if it was the first time he took notice of her state (and perhaps it was, she couldn’t be sure), a frown settling between his brows. “It’s no good, Amy.” he looks right back at her, his big pleading eyes set on her face when he barely whispers: “I missed you.”

“So did I.” And not only that but she loved him, too. That’s all speculation, really. Except the signs are all there, for whoever has eyes to see. Love was their chosen four letter word, despite their inability to say it. Why else would they jump feet first into the unknown? Meeting him was like being struck by lightning. And it happened the same way lightning does to the unaware: all at once, flashy and terrifying. Death’s closest call. Frightening with no hiding from it. She was something marvellous, too. Wonderful in her own right, which is why he loved her right back. Their story, this magical tale, was entirely about devotion. Her voice is softer than a wound, tender than a heart when she admits it. Her heart hanging heavier than any cloud, any planet, any star. A single tear slides through her cheeks, making rivers out of her laughter-lines.

“And what do we make of it?” his voice mirrored hers, almost. This tenderness of theirs, this secret they keep. He lifts his hand to wipe it away, and leaves it there for a moment, unwilling to let go of her once more. “Where did all this take us?”

“ _ Here _ .” there’s gravitas to her words, a certain faith one can’t shake. In her youth, her faith had been deposited entirely in his hands, but after their time was done for, she found the universe had greater plans than they could’ve ever foreseen. “It’s good enough for me. Was it good enough for you?”

“I’d do it all over again if i could.” He says it as though that’s a fundamental truth. One of those sentences he speaks with such belief, utter and complete trust that it made legions follow his wake. She saw him do it more than a couple of times, revolutions borne in his name, stars burned in his memory. All she had was this love. Which she’d never know where to keep.

“There’s nothing else to say, is there?” she smiles, now. Her eyes glistened when she lifted her hand to cover his, which were still cupping her cheeks, as though she was made of porcelain. As told she was the same young girl whose yard he crashed into. Behind his sad eyes, a lifetime of regrets she would not allow him to bear, if only she could take it from him, this burden. “I love you, raggedy man. So much.“

“And was it worth it?” he asks, defeated. His head falling forward as he shrugged, like Atlas.

“Shut up,” she took her hands to each side of his face, bringing it down a little more, and pressed her lips to his forehead. A blessing. “You know it was.”

He hugged her, tight and warm and almost real. 

And when she opened her eyes again, she felt tears chilling her skin.

Her own.

* * *

“Amelia—” the being, rather, the cosmic goddess, greets her as it comes into the room. She’s all darkness, from the hair to the clothes, to the smell of something akin to ends or knots being tied. Somehow, Death smelled like the end of a long journey, a very specific type of relief. Amelia concentrated of keeping her breath constant and even, forcing a smile to overcome her fears. 

“Long time no see.” she gestures towards the chair besides her bed in a silent offer, just where Anthony sat at not much before. _ How odd _ , she would’ve noted if she had the mental strength to do it,  _ how Death sat where her boy just sat _ . Though she moves softly, her voice has some of the old mirth, a keen seduction at the end of her words in a joking manner. Even this eternal being could be stuck behind on her tangled timeline. Even this one whom she knew she could call a friend from other lifetimes might not know exactly how Amy ended up this far back into her own time.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, now.” Death reprimands her with complicity in her tone.

“I understand.” She sighs. “I skipped a couple of pages, i can’t lie. I’m ahead of you.”

“So i’m told.” Death, of all beings, seems almost impressed with her and Amy finds herself closer to a real smile. “My sister sends her regards.” Oh,  _ Time _ . 

Amy and Time had some history. Beyond the doors of time and space, the land of nothing where the universe stood still, the land of creation where Amelia was held whilst the universe was brought back from her memory to life, she met Time. Soft-spoken, strong willed Time. The chosen deity of the Time Lords (at least that burning question finally found it’s answer: ‘ _ who does the Time Lords pray to? _ ’ The Doctor never answered the age old question but in the presence of Time she knew exactly who it was that held their devotion.)

“She’s kind. Please tell her i said thanks.” Amy pleads, “Hate to leave without saying goodbye.” the memory of the halo of light that cradled Time around, like a silver lining around her skin held Amelia’s breath at bay for a second despite it being a mere memory of the real thing. She was breathtaking and she spoke with such purpose it redirected the universe. And and all the goddess wanted was for amy to keep protecting him. A time would come where she would be instrumental to saving his life, but she had to stick around for it.

“Indeed she is, Amelia Pond.” Death says and, once again, Amy is surprised by the softness of her voice. Chilling, yes, but not evocative of ghosts nor a pressage of damnation. Death’s voice is smooth and her words always have purpose. A voice who could speak any language ever spoken, surely. All the ways to say goodbye. “Don’t worry, though. Time never goes anywhere at all.”

“Just like him.” Her fondness is akin to Death’s though their objects of affection are diverse and in the knowledge of each other’s deep rooted affection, the woman who stood the test of all of time and space and the woman who ruled upon it found themselves some common ground.

“Peas in a pod, really.” She sounded amused, somehow. If Amy could see her face then Death would be smiling, she knew that for sure. “Shall we?”

“I’m ready,” Amy forces some courage into her voice, feeling all too alike a child alone in her home at night in a way that she’d long forgotten about. She drags in a deep breath before her curiosity gets the best of her: “Wait- is it cheating if i ask about what comes now?”

Amy Pond, ever the wildcard, puzzled Death herself. “Now when?”

“Now.  _ Next _ . After i die.” Child-like curiosity or not, something old as a scottish girl in her yard asking a mad man pressing questions at the dead of night shone through. Her expression denouncing a certain urgency. To know this would be to go in peace. In control of the fall before she takes the leap (that would be a first.)

“Oh- after i happen?” Death shrugs, nonchalantly. “Dunno.  _ I  _ don’t cheat. Should’ve asked your daughter.”

“I did.” Amy admits, a child caught in the act in more than one way. In heart, in soul and in spirit Amelia had somehow regressed into the feelings she bore as a child. The whimsy of childhood sweeping her off her feet preemptively. This end’s naught but a beginning in disguise,  _ what’s to fear? _

“What did she say?” Death raises her brow.

“ _ Spoilers _ ,” she boasts her best River impression, accent and all as she leans forward, sitting up straight in bed. Red coat with the white detailing too long for her arms, hiding her black wool glove.

“Ha! Typical.”

“Yeah.” she chuckles, a cough interrupting her mischievous mirth. “Well, i’m not scared.”

“You’ve never been. That’s a badge of honor right there.  _ Amelia Pond: Never Have Been Scared _ .” 

“What’s to be scared of?” Amelia challenges, sitting up in the bed, head scarcely reaching the top of the headboard.

Death gestures towards her own body in a flowing motion. “Me, really. The ultimate monster under the bed.” Pride in all that she is.

“Well, you don’t sound so scary right now,” she boasts, pulling her beanie on tight. Her mother made it for her, all red and black, apples all over it. Death watches her, kind-eyed and ever the patient as she pulled on her boots. Orange hair stuck inside the coat as she put it on, little hands pulling it out with swift bravery in all its motions. No time to hesitate, she has places to go now.

Amelia’s chaperone confides: “Don’t tell other people. I kinda enjoy being a fearsome goddess.”

“I’ll keep your secret as long as you keep mine.” 

“What’s yours?” 

Amelia leans forward, closer to her companion, to whisper: “I  _ am  _ scared.”

“It’s all over.” Death says, offering her hand for Amelia to hold as she skipped off the bed from her childhood. Everything’s exactly as it was then, the dolls and the drawings and the crack on her wall, everything’s ready for the future she has ahead of herself. The redheaded scot glanced around the room, searching for her travel case before deciding it would be useless. “Nothing’s to be scared of now, Amy Pond.  _ Everything’s fine. _ ”

Funnily enough, it is. 

It has never been anything  _ but _ , actually.

It’s never been anything at all.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> When  
you wake up  
from death,  
you will find yourself  
in my arms,  
and  
I will be  
kissing you,  
and  
I  
will be crying


End file.
